


chamomile tea

by volna (seductrce)



Series: tumblr prompts: shadowhunters edition [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Translation Available, for both of them?, i guess, i guess?, smh @ self, this was supposed to be angsty and turned out to be the opposite what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7796104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seductrce/pseuds/volna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not every day that your boyfriend almost dies in battle. Except, when he's a shadowhunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chamomile tea

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [chamomile tea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324802) by [Batty_Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batty_Blue/pseuds/Batty_Blue)



> [ANONYMOUS ASKED:](http://dearestalec.tumblr.com/post/147556351947/no-but-just-imagine-magnus-carrying-sleepy-alec)  
>  no but just imagine magnus carrying sleepy alec like hannibal did with will in the digestivo episode.... without all the angst and pain and maybe following with actual teacups filled with chamomile
> 
> _______________  
> SO, as some of y'all might know I've been answering some asks as prompts on tumblr and I thought I'd collect them here to have them all in one place. Since these are mostly drabbles, don't expect too much? It's just small things...anyway, I'm currently waiting for inspiration to come back so I thought I'd do this in the mean time lmao. Don't mind me.
> 
> Translation into Russian available [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14324802)!

Battle was over, by then. Exhaustion was a concept lived, fatigue covering every ache of every wound but one. In reality, Magnus was barely on his feet, strung out and low on magic, amulets emptied, glamour off. He couldn’t care less.  
Alec's weight was permanent against his side, slumped as if he might not ever straighten again. It was so hard to keep his eyes open and concentrate, and even harder to feel Alec's exhales, delicate like fog, ghosting over Magnus' neck. Magnus closed his eyes for a second only, to reaffirm himself. They had won ground. It was over for tonight. No one would attack, his barriers would make sure of it. He could feel them pulling at his insides, slowly drinking him empty like fine wine. It didn't matter. Alec was safe, alive, right there in his arms. Alec was _breathing_. It might have been different, but it wasn’t. Just a second passed.  
“Are you sure of this?” Panting, Clary and Izzy came running up to him, dirt-smeared, cut up, exhausted. A little hollow, almost. Worried, too, more than anything, in Izzy's case. It was visible even with a glance, the forcefully pushed back disabiling fear. 

“I think I made clear that I’ll take care of him.”

He sounded cold. He didn’t try again.  
It took Magnus only a moment, even if a slightly longer one, to get a feeling for his magic. Another to create the indent in the inward barriers, one more to pull up a portal only he himself could use. It would close behind him, restoring the guardian walls. They would be fine.  
“Magnus-” it was then and Magnus understood her, but he couldn’t care about anything else.

“I said he’ll be fine, Isabelle.”

Carefully, Magnus placed an arm around Alec's shoulders and the other, in a swift, fluid movement, behind his knees to lift him up. Dead weight in his arms. Magnus pulled himself together. It wasn't like that. He wouldn't ever let it be like that.  
Turning from them, he could tell they were a little taken aback, considering, but again, he didn't care. Alec's unsupported head, hanging to the ground loose like a numb limb, exposed his vulnerable neck and the rune - that rune that was good for nothing in the end, not after so many uses, not when its source of power was lost to it. Within seconds of stepping through the portal, Magnus was home.

*

Alec was heavy as a bag of wet sand, pulling at Magnus' aching muscles like lead, taunting them. It would have been amusing that the first time he carried Alec over his threshold like a bride was the one time Alec was so close to losing life instead of starting a new one. The worst kind of joke. A weep rippled through Magnus like a wave against shore and he battled it down before it turned into something unstoppable. An almost was an almost and not a definite. Alec was a definite.  
“You’ll be fine, you hear me?” Talking to himself had never helped much. Alec's heartbeat was slow but steady where Magnus had magicked it into his chest to keep track of it, a weak ba-dumb - feeble but existent. He could feel it beating right next to his own, much quicker one. The difference was alarming when it shouldn’t have been. Passed out; Magnus had done it himself with the simplest of spells, to help him heal. Alec was nothing more, or less, than sleeping.

He pushed the door to the bedroom open with his foot, entering sideways. With a last lift, Alec's head came to rest on a crimson pillow, lolling uselessly to one side. His skin was much too pale, as if there was too little blood in him. As if all the blood on his clothes was his, when only part of it was. Gently, Magnus brushed away dried darkness of whatever kind from Alec's cheek and undressed him - boots first, unlaced string by string and pulled off with care to be thrown to the ground, not mattering now that they weren't part of Alec anymore; the rest came off in impatient, sloppy magic. There was little more Magnus could do before he would pass out himself.  
Good thing, really, that he had healed the wound right away. Now, all he had to do was wait.

The covers came right up to Alec's chin. Magnus got up and, barely making it to the kitchen, prepared a pot of freshly boiled chamomile tea - placed on the bedside table - before settling down in a pulled up chair next to Alec, arms crossed on the mattress by his side, face pressed into them. He was out like a light. Next to them, the tea went cold, but Alec didn’t.

*

He woke to a hand brushing through his hair, affectionate and too gentle, almost. Familiar in a way he thought he had forgotten how to recognize. Lately, he was being taught to remember.  
Blinking awake, Magnus peeled his cheek off his hands, clearly feeling the indents of the two rings he was wearing where they had bitten into his skin. Alec's grave voice was hoarse as if not having been used for eternity.  
“You look like a mess.”

“Right back at you, mister.”  
And he did. Alec's eyes were dark and a little feverish but as Magnus checked, there was only a little of it left. Risen and gone down. Success likely. Forehead sweat-damp and sticky. “Magnus-”

“Shh. Stop talking. You sound like gravel being crushed between stone. Do you know what that sounds like?”

“Awful?” Alec tried, with a thin smile and a whisper.

Magnus nodded earnestly. “Worse than that. I made tea. Have some.”

The water in the glass pot was suddenly boiling again, a side effect to being a warlock. Sleep had been - necessary, it seemed. The mug he filled was Alec's favorite. Sitting up was a small struggle, a puffed out laughter of pain, a quick check-up. No internal bleeding. A relieved sigh. Alec raised a tired brow. “What are you so glad about?”

“That you aren’t dying on me, anymore. Stop asking questions and drink your tea. Do you remember anything?”

Taking the mug from Magnus' hands carefully, Alec gulped down barely from boiling flower water, burned his tongue, let it hang out of his mouth to cool. Nodded. “Everything until all went black.”

Magnus could feel his brows knit together. He tried to keep his voice even.  
“When did it go black?”

“I can’t say exactly but-”  
A look, then, unguarded, bright-eyed. The fever, likely. Love? Who knew.

“Your face is the last thing I remember seeing.” Magnus winced and averted his eyes. His face, in that moment, had been...  
A pause. Long, long, longer. More tea. Magnus filled a mug for himself. It was good. Hot, like fire down his throat. Better to feel warm inside, than cold.  
More whispers, quiet yet fervent.

“Thank you. I know you saved me. I could feel it happening, I would have-”

“You would have nothing. I was there, that’s all that matters. Drink your tea.”

Wordlessly, Alec stretched out a half-empty mug. Wordlessly, Magnus refilled.  
Wordlessly, Alec placed the mug in his lap, holding onto it, and clawed the other hand into Magnus' shirt, attached to a much too heavy arm. Wordlessly, Magnus let himself be pulled.

Who needed words when you could talk in tea and favorite mugs and kisses.


End file.
